Shadowfax said:
I think that the US sometimes forgets that not all other Western countries totally depend on the US.
When you say "the US," who exactly do you mean? We have a fairly good number of people over here, and I'm just wondering which ones you're assigning this opinion to...
The US gives the rest of the World the idea that the rest of the world needs the US, and not counterwise.
Do you mean
every person in the "rest of the World" gets that idea, or are there certain people in particular that you had in mind?
At this point the US is making a big mistake. Of course, the influence of the US on the world economy is fairly large, but there is no way that the US could survive without the support of foreign countries.
You mean that the US economy would collapse, or do you mean that political isolation would destroy us? I'm not sure what's meant by this.
And at the moment they are acting like they can...not a good development.
But that's all because of the great efforts Mr. Bush is putting into ignoring all treaties made with other countries.
To my knowledge, Bush hasn't ignored any treaties that the US has made with other countries. What he has done ignored treaties that the US Senate never ratified. Other presidents might have opted to enforce the treaties, even though they were never ratified, but Bush hasn't done this-- at least, not with some treaties, such as Kyoto.
Don't flame me for my opinion please.
Okie-doke.
I like a good discussion concerning this point. Does the majority of the Americans agree on the current governing done by the Bush administration?
Bush has high numbers in the polls, but I don't know if a majority of people would agree with him on the specific issues you've raised. There can be a lot of reasons for why people have an overall favorable opinion of a president ranging from the very shallow to the more sophisticated. My personal opinion of Bush is very mixed, but on this particular issue I agree with him whole-heartedly. There are two issues in this one: 1) the merit of the treaties; and 2) whether a treaty should be enforced even though it wasn't ratified by the Senate. I do not think that Kyoto or the anti-ballistic treaty were good treaties, and I don't think the executive branch should usurp the power of the legislative branch by enforcing a treaty which wasn't ratified. (With regard to Kyoto, I would hope that other countries would follow the US, because it's only purpose is to undo the industrial revolution. Nobody needs that.)
Or did they like the Clinton administration more, which put a lot of more efforts into cooperating with other countries?
Clinton was elected twice, but never with a majority of the vote. Bush actually got more votes than Clinton, even though the contest between him and Gore was so close. I think it's fair to say that a large number of people were fed up with Clinton when he left office, but again, their reasons would be varied. Note that prior to the signing of the Kyoto Accord, both Clinton and the Senate (the latter in a unanimous vote) had said that all countries should be treated the same in the agreement. That wasn't done, and Clinton did not push the treaty in Congress. Whether he would have enforced it or not is an open question. I'm sure he was more sympathetic with it than Bush, and I'm sure Gore was more so than both (Gore being the eco-fascist that he is).
My personal opinion of Clinton is that I loathed him, both on a personal and philosophical level. As for cooperation, it's great as long as it benefits the US, but it's idiotic to sacrifice our interests in the name of getting along with others. That's true for any country.
Hope that answered your questions.
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